Thank You- From Annley

Annley's thank you to the family Tyler has been living with.

Annley's thank you to Tyler's boss at Comcast.

Faith and Forest Prayers

 Annley is learning and growing so much. She is also now has her own interpretation of things, pictures and phrases. This  has caused a little confusion and drama in our family the last two weeks.

Sunday, we went to church, came home, enjoyed the day, went to bed and voila Monday was here.
Monday, morning Annley wakes up and looks out the window.
"Mommy, I see a forest! I need to go in it and pray so Heavenly Father can see me."

My first thought oh, they learned about Joseph Smith and the First Vision on Sunday. Nope, I talked to the nursery leader. They learned that Heavenly Father has a physical body just like them. She did however show a picture of The First Vision to show that Heavenly Father does indeed have a body like them. She put the rest together on her own.

"Oh, um ok but we can't right now because Parker is sleeping. Did you know we can say a prayer right here in the house and Heavenly Father can still hear us and see us."
"But I want to see him. Will he come see me in the house?"
"I'm not sure. Heavenly Father doesn't make appearances for very many prayers."
Drama ensues... "But he will come see me pray in the forest!"

Next day, we go to my friends house.
"Guess what Mrs. Autumn? When we get in Phoebe (our van) and leave here we are going to see Heavenly Father."
"What? I never said that. Honey we can't just get in the car and just drive to see Heavenly Father." "He lives too far away."
"In Seattle?"
"Um No. We can't exactly get to where he is right now."
"When?"

Great, now I have to explain life and death to my 3 year old.
"Annley, do you remember Tuff? He got really old and died so Heavenly Father took Tuff to live with him. Heavenly Father gets to choose when we see him for now that is usually after we die."
Silence... followed my my sigh of relief. I should have known better. Apparently she was just analyzing what I said.

Wednesday, the next day.
"Grandpa, Tuff got really old and he died so now he lives with Heavenly Father."
"Yep, that's right."
"And you are going to get really old and then you'll die and go see Heavenly Father."
"Yep, that's true too."
"And then I'll get really old and die...then I can go see Heavenly Father."
"Yes, but that won't happen for a very very long time."
Short silence followed by loud sigh, pouting and tears...
"I don't want to get old! I don't want to die."

It was a long few days.  She is still asking to go pray in the forest so I'll be taking her to do that sometime this week. She's not upset about dying or at least she isn't talking about it but she is still talking about Heavenly Father seeing her pray and wanting to see him.

I really don't know what else to say at this point other than Heavenly Father decides who gets to see him while we live on Earth.

Annley in Nature

One of my goals this summer is to expose Annley to lots of nature and by nature I mean bugs and living things. Some of my favorite summer memories are of catching lighting bugs, frogs, turtles, going fishing etc...

Annley's first encounter was with a toad her cousin caught while we were on a walk.  Annley loved looking at the toad but she refused to get close to it or touch it. I guess maybe it was too ugly for her highness to touch; I'm not sure. She still asks to go for walks and look for frogs so I guess she likes them to some extent if nothing else she thinks they are funny when they jump.

The second "outing" was to catch lighting bugs. I bought her a bug box that she could put them with the condition that she touch one of the lighting bugs. She readily agreed. We waited with great excitement for it to get dark enough for the lighting bugs to come out and off we went. Annley loved the chase and opened and closed the box as her cousins and I caught the bugs.  Did she touch a lighting bug? Um no.

                                         
The third outing was a fishing trip. Annley has been begging to go fishing since we got back to my parents' house last week. Last night we finally got to go. It was a family affair. Even my mom and Parker went. Luckily there are some wonderful people in our ward who have a playground not too far from the pond on their property. This is where Parker and my brother's girlfriend spent most of their time.
Annley told me that she was going to catch three fish,  put them in a white box, then I could clean them and cook them but not the big one.
Well, I caught a couple of little fish and guess what? She touched one and I have proof.

It's a...

This morning my mom, Tyler's mom and I drove to Greenville Technical College for an ultrasound to find out what this baby is.

Greenville Tech offers free ultrasound for the women who are between 19-33 weeks pregnant and its free.
The ultrasound took 2 hours partially because the student does the ultrasound first and the instructor comes in afterwards to go over everything the student did and because the baby kept flipping around every time the student tried to get a picture of anything.

It was a lot of fun getting to watch the baby move around so much.

So, what gender is the baby?

It's a BOY!